


Corruption

by CapricciotheSpoon



Series: Broken Star [2]
Category: Cav Fanbots
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29120739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapricciotheSpoon/pseuds/CapricciotheSpoon
Summary: A retelling of Part III of Broken Star from Koutali's point of view. Fun fact, the work in progress title for this was 'Hubris Man Number Two: Electric Boogaloo'
Series: Broken Star [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136192





	Corruption

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Broken Star III: The Star and the Dragon](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/753486) by Electrozilla (electrozilla.tumblr.com). 



They made him go on this goddamned mission. They were at fault. He warned them about the dangers of time travel, about the irreparable damage it could cause the timeline, and they didn’t listen. Of course they didn’t, the singular voice of reason in this group of misfits was ignored time and time again. His arm still hurt from where Eris tackled him, a reckless move from someone who didn’t have much control over his actions, unlike Koutali.

The reckless are the stupid and the stupid die fast. That was a fact Koutali knew well. Back in his teenage years one of his best friends, Ignazio Ballarin, had died from his recklessness. Koutali had warned him about his actions, tried to knock some sense into him, but as usual the stupid never listen and he was forced to suffer the consequences. 

This hellish wasteland of a ruined and desolate future, this zombie-strewn world of desperate survivors, he was running out of adjectives to describe it but it was bad, all of it was awful. Eris’s hubris had truly destroyed the world. Koutali knew it was inevitable, the higher the tower the harder the fall, but for him to be dragged into Eris’s idiocy as well? Deplorable. 

The group saw a small shelter in the distance with some curiously familiar people inside trying to fight off the horde and, of course, they decided to assist them. Koutali’s pristine teal coat was stained with horrid greenish-red blood from an earlier tussle with some zombies, he was sure it wasn’t going to come out easily. He’d give it to Eris to clean, yet another consequence for his actions, and if it wasn’t spotless… well Koutali wasn’t sure what he would do but it wouldn’t be friendly. The zombie blood had also gotten onto the cloth around his mouth, likely staining it too, and that was a lot harder to clean since it was stitched into his face. Plus, it smelled to high hell and since it was stuck right under his nose it was near impossible to ignore. All this kept compounding and his hatred for Eris was rising in tandem.

Behind the barricade was Siren, Captain, Nacarat, and Coral, all people they’d left at the manor when Eris started his little experiment. They looked weary, as if they’d been doing this for weeks, and his suspicions turned out to be correct. Leaving the group to reunite on their own -he really couldn’t care less- his concern was the people they were protecting, were they in good shape? I mean, of course they weren’t, but Koutali always had a few snacks in his pockets and distributed them to the people. They seemed immensely grateful for this generosity which made him feel a bit better, even if Eris may have screwed up big time at least their timing was right to give just a little hope to these few survivors.

When he returned the group was planning a full on assault of the hoard and Koutali was willing to fight, if just to protect the people, and you bet Eris was going to do his blood-soaked laundry when they got back to their real home. Picking up a piece of shrapnel that once served as a part of their makeshift barricade he was prepared to take down as many of them as he could before something happened… something they hadn’t planned on. The Necrobot. The source of all of this.

His entrance as grand as ever, coming in on a large dragon likely made of pure necro-energy, it was an intimidating sight for sure. Koutali did his best to remain unfazed but something in him knew something was very wrong. He stood his ground as best he could, maintaining his stoic exterior all through Nox’s dramatic spiel, until-

Nox pointed at Koutali, calling him the team’s Achilles heel and snapping his fingers. Sudden pain wracked his body, every nerve organic and synthetic surging indescribable agony through every part of him. A human would lose consciousness with this much pain but he wasn’t fully human and was forced to endure every agonizing second. The cloth areas covering what was left of his flesh split, tendrils spilling out between the cracks and seams of his chassis, his very tissue seeming to boil and bubble off of the mesh of bones and metal that made up his interior. 

As this torture continued another thing, less visible but perhaps more impactful, was happening. His brain chemistry was being altered by the influence of the necrocore, his rationality and sensibilities being stripped from him. The real thing, the true sometimes hubris-fueled but truly good at heart Koutali Spiros, was being crushed by Nox, the last semblance of who he once was beginning to crumble into nothing. And he could still feel everything.

A whole new set of thoughts began invading his mind, instructions, sensations, demands. His companions, they were all liars. They truly hated them like he’d thought all along, they brought him out on this mission from hell to dispose of him. They were going to dispose of him like how the mafia disposed of him twenty years prior. He wasn’t about to let that happen again. Once was more than enough.

Something inside of him was crying out against this rage. Very small now, just a grain of sand in an ocean of fire, but it nagged at him that this was wrong. This wasn’t him. They were his friends, not foes, and they didn’t deserve whatever the Necrobot was planning on Koutali doing to them. But one grain of sand isn’t enough to change the tides and the necro-ified chaos going on inside the rotting parts of his brain were more powerful. He had fully succumbed to his fate.

Looking up at his once-companions, ready to attack them at a moment’s notice, he realized something was staring him in the face. It was the barrel of Captain’s revolver. Before he could even flinch a bullet was lodged into his brain, the bullet coming through one of the many cracks in his chassis caused by his transformation. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t die instantly. The agony sent shockwaves throughout his body, knocking him to the ground and paralyzing his legs, but he was still conscious. Still awake. Still alive. The Necrobot made sure it was like this, made sure to not just kill his prey but to psychologically torment them as well. That was the true way to strike fear into the opposition. Not by brute force, but by subversion. 

After what seemed like an eternity, what was left of his vision faded to black. His lungs, well, the one that was relatively intact, had stopped inhaling and his heart stopped beating. For the second time in his life, Koutali had died. And for the second time in his life, it was by a bullet to the brain. But this time there was no coming back. No Lisa Callisto swooping his corpse from the sewer drain, no 10 year attempt to bring him back to life. It even seemed that Nox didn’t care about him, he was just a pawn to distract the group from protecting the humans in the town hall, just one bug easily stepped on and discarded by the dragon in his lair. A story of 49 years, a saga of tragedy, was finally over.

But his soul was not peaceful, it belonged to the Necrobot. And the Koutali we all know and love was gone. This time, permanently.


End file.
